


Tales of Azeroth: The Rat Trap

by Zaalbeth



Series: Goblins! Goblins! Goblins! [1]
Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: ...I give up, Action/Adventure, Comedy, Contracts, Elementals, Gen, Goblins, I've about had it up to here with you and your staring, JUST READ THE DAMN STORY ALREADY, Look pal, Pre-Cataclysm, Shamans, You lookin' at me?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-03 22:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14006193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaalbeth/pseuds/Zaalbeth
Summary: You want it, this story’s got it. Just so long as you want GOBLINS! But hey, who doesn’t want goblins?!Meet Boon. A young shaman on a one-goblin mission to show the elements who’s boss. Now Boon here, he may not be the best shaman you’ve ever seen. He may not be the sharpest brick in the wall. He may not be the nicest guy on the South Side. But one thing he is? A goblin through and through. And sometimes, that’s the most important thing of all.[SPOILERS: A fun exploration of goblin culture, and how exactly they relate to the shamanic arts, wrapped around a neat little adventure, all packed in with more goblin attitude than you can shake a stick (of dynamite) at.]





	Tales of Azeroth: The Rat Trap

**Author's Note:**

> This short piece was the original inspiration for the Goblins! Goblins! Goblins! series and writing style. It also serves as a kind of backstory/prequel to the main A Gaggle of Goblins stories (coming soon to a fanfic site near you).

Once upon a time, there was a goblin. A goblin named Boon.

Boon liked to say his name was a reference to his ‘innate gift’ for shamanism, but everybody knew it was because of where Momma Sparx had found him: down by the boonies, half-covered in sand, hidden under a pile of discarded retro-boosters.

Back then Momma always had a whole bunch of kids in the house, and she had trouble keeping track of all the names, see. So she mostly called them by something simple, easy to remember. Like the size of the kid’s ears, or the dumb look on his face, or the place she’d found him. She was real sentimental like that.

So Boonies turned to Boony, then when he got too old to be cute any more, just plain Boon. People liked the name, even if they didn’t like the kid. So, the name stuck.

 

Fast forward a couple decades. Now Boon was a shaman, but not a very good one. He offered peanuts, and asked the world in return. The elementals weren’t biting, but Boon wasn’t about to let that stop him.

“You don’t pay up? I call up my friend Mr Fire Elemental and see what we can’t do with all these here flammable combustibles. _Capische?_ "

In reality, the closest Boon had gotten to a fire elemental was the time he let his cigar ash fall onto the little oily oozeling he’d captured down in the Undersludge the week before. Little fella never knew what hit him. Neither did half of Boomtown.

The thing was, Boon just didn’t have the attitude for shaman business. Didn’t know how to handle the customers, least that’s what the trainers said.

“The thing about the elements,” his teacher used to say, “is you gotta treat ‘em with _respect_. You can’t just grab ‘em by the throat and _make_ ‘em serve you.”

Boon was determined to prove him wrong. All you had to do was show them who was boss. Weren’t no way he was sucking up to some pile of rocks. He was the man. The _shay-_ man, you dig? That’s right. _The man._

—

Two years of trying later, and Boon wasn’t any closer to making sparks fly from his fingertips, but he was still determined to do things his way. The way he saw it, after all these years working his butt off carving totems and praying to the ancestors, dancing around in circles with a bunch of stupid feathers stuck on his head, the elements _owed_ him. OK, maybe he’d come on a little strong to begin with, but come on, who did these guys think they were?! He’d seen the elementals rumbling around alongside the other shamans like some pet on a leash. They weren’t nothing but big piles of pebbles. And he weren’t gonna kiss the ring of no jumped-up rock garden, no matter how big its ego had gotten. He was the shaman. _The man._

His teachers were still spewing the same old crap, reeling out the same old lines day after day. “You gotta _bargain_ with them,” they’d say, “they’re customers like any other. Show ‘em a little respect, make ‘em feel valued, show ‘em you can really take ‘em places, make ‘em look good. Then when you got the fish on the line, when they start biting, WHAM! slam down a contract and get ‘em to sign it.”

Boon liked the idea of slamming something heavy on the head of one of those big lugs, but he didn’t really get what all this fish garbage was about. Whatever. He knew what he was doing.

His teachers weren’t so sure. “Look, maybe you’re just not cut out to be a shaman. Maybe a rogue - or a warrior! Yeah, tough guy like you, you don’t wanna waste your time negotiating with touchy elementals, back and forth, back and forth. Go see old Janx, get him to show you a few moves!” He was starting to think these guys were scared he was gonna beat them. They could see how good he was getting with those totems, reckoned they’d get rid of him before he put them in the shade.

And he really was getting good with the totems. Only last week he’d speared a seagull with a half-carved water totem without even looking. Took it right out of the air. The nature-loving tauren next to him was so impressed she burst right into tears. Oh yeah. He got it alright.

—

Another couple years, and he still couldn’t walk on water or light his cigar without fiddling in his pockets first. Now he was just _mad_. He’d gotten into more than one fight yelling at an elemental as it strolled by, giving him the old stink-eye. “You think you’re better than me?!” he’d shout, and the elemental would just _ignore_ him, like he was dirt, like he wasn’t even worth looking at! “Don’t you play dumb with me, buddy! I know you heard me! Get your floating ass back here and I’ll show you what a _real fire_ looks like!” It was usually about this point that people started throwing things; food, empty cans, sticks of dynamite. He got it. They were intimidated by his natural charisma. Some people were just insecure that way.

By this time his teachers had given up. “Look, just don’t come to the powwows any more, OK buddy? You’re scaring off the ancestors.” See? Intimidated. Couldn’t handle the competition.

Whatever. He was sick of this place anyway. Time to hit the road, broaden his horizons a little, find a crowd a little closer to his level.  
  
—  
  
  
Main story to be uploaded soon!


End file.
